Why I wake up in the morning...

Our Favorite Lessons

I thought in an attempt to give you some insight into our classroom life at St. Leo's and more recently for me in the 1000 HCH creche that perhaps I would provide you with some pictures of our favorite lessons and a brief explanation:

There is an awesome book in the St. Leo's library called The Gruffalo. Maybe someday if you are lucky enough I will read it to you. Anyways, we did an awesome project with grade 4 after reading The Gruffalo. First we talked about adjectives and then we each drew our own Gruffalo. Here are some of the finished results.



This particular project was one of my favorites... although I had nothing to do with it. But, I wanted to share it with all of you because of how awesome I think it is. So here is the Grade 3 Earth Day project courtesy of MK and Shin. They did a wonderful job if I do say so myself.





Sometimes we have days where we feel silly. That's what happened when we did the letter "H" with Grade 4. So we made hats and listened to music all day:



And of course we did several lessons of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Here are some pictures of our favorites:
Percival, Sizwe and Vuyani showing off our 2010 "South Africa Welcomes the World" Wall.
And below, our classroom beautiful decorated with the grade 3's Bafana Bafana Jerseys:




Also, in case you were wondering... yes. I hear vuvuzelas ALL the time. No, I don't own one. But I have tried blowing on one thanks to the boys from St. Theresa's:

International Languages: It Thrills Me Right Down To My Marrow.

South Africa has this amazing musician named Johnny Clegg. The French have come to refer to him (quite aptly) as the “White Zulu”.

On Thursday, Meg, Shin and I met up with our friends Andrew and Gordon to go see Johnny perform at Gateway (the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere). The show opened with the lead singer of a band called Tree63. He ended his performance with Three Little Birds > Wave Your Flag > Nkosi Si’Kelele Afrika. It was awesome.

Anyways – Johnny opened the show with a few of our favourites, including “I’m Sitting on the Top of Kilimanjaro” in which he rhymes several words with Kilimanjaro, including marrow, tomorrow, and sorrow.

I stopped grooving long enough to realize that I was in a crowd of mostly white South Africans but we were all dancing and singing along to songs written and sung entirely in Zulu. At first I was irritated. Why couldn’t these white South Africans make more of an effort to integrate the culture that surrounds them into their lives. But then I realized that was exactly what was happening all around me. And, seriously – how cool is that?!

And then yesterday, we decided that instead of walking back to the car from the FIFA fan park, we would dance. Don’t worry… 4 little white girls from the Northeast of the USA started several dance parties. It didn’t matter what race we were or what colour we were or what language we spoke. Music doesn’t give a damn about that nonsense. It was just music and dancing. Man, I wish the world could be so simple.

So between the white zulu, a million world cup dance parties, and a few good soccer matches, I think we have safely exited the mid-yea slump and are moving on with the next 6 months of our South African lives.

Feel it. It is here.

When I studied abroad in Pretoria in 2007, a billboard was put up that we saw when we walked to class. It said “South Africa: Host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup”. I remember thinking how far away it seemed. My classmates and I talked extensively about how awesome it would be to reunite in 3.5 years in South Africa to celebrate such a momentous event for the country and the continent. Almost 4 years ago it seemed impossible to think about it. Yet, here I live, in the country I fell in love with four years ago.

Last night, I was part of the dream that has materialized for South Africa. At 2pm, in Durban, I got to stand with people from all over the world, proudly bearing both the American and South African flags. My residual feeling of grief and anxiety did not exist last night as I watched the opening ceremonies. I am so proud to be here for this.

The emotion I experienced and witnessed in others was very much like watching the streets of South Central Los Angeles flood as we realized we had elected our first black president. It was like the peace that settled over the crowd during Obama’s inauguration. Flags of every culture cover cars, very similar, in a way, to the comraderie that America found after the tragedy of 9/11.

South Africa has a lot of problems. But for now, in this month, ubuntu seems more real than ever. So, I’m grabbin’ my vuvuzela, puttin’ on my red white and blue, and heading to Durbs for the England v. USA match.

PS – If you were wondering… South Africa’s team tied Mexico 1-1 last night. And South Africa scored the first goal of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Feel it. It is here.

7 Days

I apologize for the pause in blogging for the past week. Our house was hit by lightning in a large storm a few weeks ago and our internet and computer have been out of whack for quite some time. But we seem to be back on track (finally).

I wrote this blog out on some paper scraps from our classroom at St. Leo’s. It was lunchtime when I was writing (10 a.m.) and Shin and I were listening to Eddie Vedder sing to us from the Into The Wild soundtrack. Shin was reading aloud from her Bill Bryson book about Shakespeare and offering me interesting facts about his life and I was trying to ignore the screaming Grade R outside the door to focus on this blog post.

I’m still feeling the effects of the mid-year slump. My love for this place and the kids and people I come across is constantly at war with my frustration with the way South Africa works as a whole and with my homesickness and longing to feel comfortable again (although, my physical comfort is fine… my discomfort is almost entirely intangible). What a loss to myself if I fail to continually challenge myself towards discomfort. I hope I never settle into comfort and disregard the worlds injustices.

So, moving on… I guess an update about life would be a good place to start:

- Things at 1000 HCH are going well. There’s been a little bit of conflict regarding Meg and my job definition as full-time volunteers. It’s challenging to not have a clearly defined role in a place. Otherwise, we gave out quarterly food parcels on Tuesday and the center was a madhouse. But it was a positive energy. Everyone was singing and dancing while they patiently (for the most part) waited to be given their parcels. I haven’t seen Samke or Phume since their first visit, so that is upsetting. On a brighter note, we are helping two diabetic Gogos pay for their medicine through the aid of an awesome US NPO called Care Now!. If it goes well, they might start a sponsoring program for the Gogos!

- St. Leo’s is going well this week. We made hats with Grade 4 last week (picture coming soon!). I am planning to go to an internet café sometime soon and upload a video of them singing so you can envision it a little better. We had mass with the school and a new Zulu priest yesterday. I feel solidarity with them in the strongest way possible when we attend mass together. It is a very unique and special feeling. It’s as if skin color finally becomes irrelevant. Wealth doesn’t matter during the ceremony because when it comes down to it, we are all part of the same big thing. Thank God for little prayers answered.

- Everyone in South Africa is gearing up for the World Cup (which, by the way, is only 7 days away). Every Friday everyone in the country wears yellow and green and pulls out their Bafana Bafana jerseys. At St. Leo we have a pep rally to get pumped up. When I’m not focusing on how damaging the World Cup could be for my kids, it actually is quite a unifying and beautiful thing for this country. It evokes pride and comraderie that reminds me of the Post-9/11 feelings that happened in the United States. Everyone seems to look past their differences to wear the SA flag and cheer together.

To leave you on a laughing note, on Monday Shin and I taught Grade 6 and I had the most hilariously klutzy day. First, as I was writing on it, the chalkboard flew off the wall and almost ate me. Then, as I was picking up the chalkboard and trying to recover from the incident, I accidentally stepped on the hem of my skirt and as I stood up I failed to bring my skirt with me. Thank goodness I chose to wear leggings that day, though I think the Grade 6 boys were still thoroughly embarrassed (don’t worry boys, so was I).